Smartcards are being used more and more in everyday life, for example, in automated vehicle tolling systems and cellular telephones. When a smartcard is manufactured, it must be enabled and then personalised prior to dispensing the cards to a user.
Smartcards are generally provided with two types of memory that can be used to store executable programmes. The first type of memory is read only memory (ROM) which is programmed at the time of manufacturing and subsequently cannot be erased or altered. The second type of memory is generally some form of modifiable non-volatile memory which can be read from and written to during the life of the card.
It is a common approach when manufacturing smartcards to place those parts of the application that will never be changed into the card's ROM and use the modifiable memory for data or executable applications that may change during the life of the card. The capacity of ROM and modifiable memory is limited so it is desirable to maximise the efficiency of its use to optimise the card's intended application or applications. Accordingly, any means of more efficiently using the memory on the smartcards will provide an advantageous result. Previous solutions to the problem of having insufficient memory means on smartcards have been proposed, however, these primarily relate to more complex methods of writing data to ROM. For example, EP0275510 (IBM) discloses smartcards having memory means, the cards being manufacturing such that the memory means is at least partially unused or altogether without application programmes loaded into the ROM. The citation allows appropriate application programmes to be loaded into the ROM at a later stage.
The disclosure provides this such that when the card is manufactured it is provided with a bootstrap program which allows subsequent applications to be later loaded and stored in the ROM. This provides an advantage of allowing parallel manufacture of the cards and development of the software because, traditionally, software had to be completely developed and tested before storing in ROM, since ROM could not be altered. This resulted in the need to discard the smartcard if an error had occurred or changes to an application program needed to be made.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,082 (Haenel) is directed toward the creation of a flexible means for the post initialisation of chipcards which provides for more cost effective production. The patent provides for the writing of additional applications onto the chipcard at any point in time after the conclusion of initialisation, whereby commands and keys which already exist on the chip are utilised therefor. Primarily, the citation is directed toward loading key data into non-volatile memory.
The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,409 (Beigel) relates to cooperative identification systems in which the identifying agency and the object to be identified cooperate in the identification process according to a prearranged scheme. The patent employs programmable ROMs (in a transponder/tag device) that are programmed either by the manufacturer or by the user prior to implantation of objects to be identified. Communication between the tag and a reader is accomplished by the reader establishing a reversing magnetic field in the vicinity of the tag and the tag varying its absorption of power from the field in accordance with the information to be transmitted. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing smartcards and the cards produced therefrom that will enable more efficient use of smartcard memory means.